


In Another Life

by orphan_account



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drug Use, F/M, Genderbending, Homelessness, Humor, Illusions, Loki Does What He Wants, M/M, Minor Character Death, School, but its okay because he's really a guy, fem!Loki, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-22
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 19:45:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/853347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the start of another day in another life. Tony Stark gets ready for his minimum wage job at the local Shawarma restaurant. His new boss is hot.</p><p>What he will come to learn in the next few days, along with a select few other people in NYC, is that perhaps the world he knows isn't as mundane as he believes it to be. And maybe, just maybe, there's more to himself than he thinks as well.</p><p>Meanwhile a certain doctor cast away to South America tries to reunite with his friends, but the road is long and no one seems to have heard of superheroes in this strange world...</p><p>~On indefinite hiatus, not posting more till its finished but god knows if i ever will sorry~</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Another Life

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to my pet project. Don't expect frequent updates, I'm doing my archaeology field school at the bronze age Minoan Town of Gournia on Crete right now and for the next 5 weeks and digging eight hours a day takes it out of you. That said, this story is an idea I've had kicking around for a while. Yes there will be Clintasha because it's pretty much canon. Yes there will be some Pepper/Tony in addition to some IronFrost but the relationships are not the drive of this story.
> 
> I'm writing this mostly for my own benefit, like I said, it's a pet project. Still, if you have any comments, I'd love to hear them.

**In Another Life**

_Chapter 1: Awaken_

Tony Stark was stretched haphazardly across a small, twin-size bed with rumpled, stained sheets, his feet hanging over the end of it. He hadn’t laundered the sheets in several weeks; he simply wasn’t one for household chores. His bedroom was a tiny one, drab with grey peeling wallpaper and duct tape covering the small hole in the wall that would’ve shown him his neighbour’s living room. When his neighbour had been a rather stunning little Asian table dancer the tape hadn’t been required, but when she was found dead in the alley behind the building with her breasts brutally severed from her body, a fat, balding Hispanic man with something against pants had appeared in the room instead and Tony found the tape very necessary indeed.

The bedroom was sparse in furniture. Only the bed and side table could be counted as such and their worm-eaten wooden frames had come with the apartment. Otherwise he had a few milk crates and cardboard boxes filled with wrinkled clothes and magazines covered with images of naked females, as well as two boxes in the corner that contained all the sci-fi magazines he recalled reading in his childhood. He hadn’t picked them up in years however.

There were only two objects in the room that could be called clean. The first was a framed photograph sitting on the bedside table next to a small analog alarm clock. It displayed a picture of himself and his parents on vacation in a cabin at Lake Jarvis in Oklahoma where he recalled vacationing when he was seven or eight. The photo was old and faded these days, despite attempts to get it restored and his parent’s faces were a little blurred but the smiles were unmistakable.

The other clean object was his Shawarma Shack uniform that hung on a rusty hanger from the doorknob. He would need that today.

The alarm clock read one o’clock when it began to ring, and Tony let out a pained grunt as he hand reach out blindly to end the demonic sound. He thrashed about and ended up knocking the clock onto the floor, though that didn’t stop it blaring. Groaning loudly, Tony dragged himself into a sitting position and looked down at the annoying object. Stupid technology. He slowly got out of bed and bent down to grab the clock, fumbling with it for a while before it finally shut off. He could never manage to get it to turn off on the first try, like the knowledge of how to do so would avoid him. But he did manage it in the end. Sighing, he got up and shuffled out of the bedroom and into the tiny bathroom to shower, hoping that his hot water wasn’t shut off again.

It was.

One benefit to the freezing shower, however, was that it woke him up fully. By the time he was pulling on his uniform, a pop tart hanging out of his mouth, he was feeling more ready to face the day. He turned to the photograph on his bedside table and smiled slightly, scratching on his stubbly cheek with one hand. He didn’t have time to shave that morning it seemed. Looking at the blurred faces, he wondered what his life would have been like if his parents hadn’t died when he was fifteen, if he hadn’t run away from his foster parents soon after? Maybe he wouldn’t be working in a dead end job at age 40, making minimum wage and generally wasting his life? Well, he couldn’t keep dwelling on that. His landlord Miss Potts would go ballistic if he missed another rent payment, so he had better get to work on time for once.

He shook his head and rubbed absently at the center of his hairy chest through his shirt as he made for the door and the subway station beyond. He tended to rub that spot a lot, he supposed, as it was beginning to leave a small red mark there among his otherwise unmarked skin.

*

Thor Odinsson may have once been popular in high school. He had the blond hair, the muscles for a jock of the highest calibre. He could have brought many-a-team to victory and likely was showered with beer at parties.

That had been before an introduction to some of the more potent drugs of course. At first it was only steroids he took to help with his performance, but once that was found out his father had kicked him out of the house and new drugs took hold of him. Heroine mostly, though mushrooms were never out of the question.

He lived like many of the homeless in New York City. He slept under a highway underpass with about a dozen others, using rags and newspapers to shelter himself from the cold. He would beg on street corners, getting as many coins from passers-by as he could. Though with his wild, unkempt hair and hazy blue eyes people were far more likely to avoid him. When he did manage to get money it only fed his habit, and when he couldn’t he wasn’t opposed to stealing if the mood took him. His fix was important after all, the only important thing he had left.

Usually when Thor begged in the subway stations he was kicked out almost immediately, but he hardly cared on that day. He hadn’t had a fix in almost a week; he’d have to steal soon. His withdrawal was hurting too much. He’d steal from a woman this time, men were too hard. They beat him too easily, he was malnourished and weak.

Sitting just inside the doors of the subway station to avoid the cutting wind from the autumn, he found himself unable to get a single person to look at him, let alone give hand outs. Growling to himself, Thor shook a fist at an older lady.

“GIMMIE A BREAK, OLD HAG! FAT CUNT!” Thor roared with eyes wide and twitching madly, making the lady squeak and hurry away. He grunted and scooted into the wall. Something, he needed something...

Then he saw a middle-aged man with stubbly cheeks and untidy hair hurry through wearing a uniform for some fast food job. He struggled upward to approach him and MAKE him see the haggard beggar, but then the security guards filled his vision and he winced as the batons came down on him and he was quickly ushered out.

*

Natasha Romanov smiled kindly at the eighteen young children assembled before her. A little girl in a white t-shirt and pink shorts was picking her nose, a little boy with messy blond hair had a hand down his pants, a second boy sitting at the back of the pack was eating glue again.

‘ _Disgusting little things,’_ the thought flashed through her mind, but Natasha kept smiling. She ignored the thought. Her anger issues were in hand. She had been a kindergarten teacher for three years now. She hadn’t expected to become so bitter so quickly. She had thought she loved children, but lately it seemed she hated the little bastards. It was so odd how quickly her temper would flare up.

“Tommy, what did we say about glue?” Her voice had a musical ring to it. She felt mildly nauseated by it.

“Don’t eat it?” Tommy guessed in a soft voice as a number of the other children giggled at him for his bad habit.

“That’s right,” Natasha nodded pleasantly and opened the book she was holding, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. She began to read as the children either sat with rapt attention or took an early naptime.

Natasha found she could care less which it was as long as they stayed fucking quiet for a few minutes. Her forehead crinkled slightly at the vulgar phrasing. Perhaps she ought to see a therapist about this.

Suddenly a knock was heard on the door of the classroom and it opened quickly. Natasha looked up and fought back a grimace as the principal entered, smiling a little too tightly at the mass of children gathered around Natasha and then quirking his lips into a smirk that was a little too suggestive when the gaze turned to Natasha herself.

“Just thought I’d poke my head in to see how things were going _Miss_ Romanov. Are the children behaving themselves?”

“WE ARE!” screamed one girl, Mary. Natasha sighed and quietly hushed the girl who looked sheepish at least.

Natasha looked at the principal and forced a smile onto her face. “Yes, they’re as good as they could be. We’re just reading a story now before snack time.”

“Oh well don’t let me keep you too long!” The principal laughed, “But perhaps you can drop by my office after school today to have a little chat about your lesson plans?”

Natasha’s lips worked together into a thin line briefly. She knew perfectly well what _that_ meant. Honestly, she was THIS CLOSE to filing a sexual harassment charge if she could ever get him to do more than ogle her and make ambiguous remarks she’d have something but ooh she could not STAND this man...

“Of course, I’ll _clearly_ be looking forward to it,” she waved, hoping every syllable came across as drenched in sarcasm as she wanted it to be. The principal frowned ever so slightly, then shrugged, leered, and left the class. Natasha sighed, looked at the curious faces of the children and shrugged herself, opening the book again. It was nothing she couldn’t handle.

*****

No one likes math class. Even Mr. Clinton Barton of one of the many local NYC high school hated it, and he taught the damn subject. Sure, he was good at math. He could calculate percentages and angles in his head, could even create algorithms that would account for wind speed, he really wished he was teaching physics instead. But, teachers have to eat, and there were no physics teachers required at this new high school. They needed a math teacher, and so here he was to fill the position.

The worst part is that he totally understood why half the kids were falling asleep to the sound of his voice, or doodling on their notebooks as he droned his way through the Pythagorean Theorem. Math by itself was all theoretical. Playing with numbers idly never fascinated him, he had to actually apply the figures to something to drum up his own interest and so the applied math in physics was much more appealing to him (even if his students treated both subjects with horror and contempt). Also in physics class he could make paper air planes and throw them at the sleeping students to demonstrate velocity or something. Throwing well aimed pencils was less amusing than when he could make a lesson out of it. But he was stuck where he was. He had to make the best of it.

“SIR!”

Mr. Barton paused in drawing his diagram of a right angle triangle and turned to the room. “Yes Mr. Matthews?” He was the type of teacher to call students by their last name. Some would call it old fashioned, but Barton felt that last names held more meaning, more formality. More military, really, and though Barton had never served his father had and that made him feel more at home addressing others by surname only. Adding the 'mister' was just to sound a bit more scholarly as well. It was all calculated.

Mr. Matthews sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes. “Sir, I didn't finish writing down your last note before you erased it for the diagram thingy. What was the formula again?”

Mr. Barton sighed as well, rubbing his forehead. “A squared plus B squared equals C squared.” He did not get paid enough to teach these morons. He had to get a drink after work today. Though his wife might complain if he was out too late... maybe he'd just pick up a case of beer. He smirked slightly, coming home to his beautiful wife was the only thing that made working at this dump teaching these monkeys worth while. She was tall, blond, kind and sweet, but with a cute sarcastic edge to her. They were only a year wed and planned to make a baby soon. It was a pretty little picture.

_'But not entirely satisfying, is it?'_

Barton frowned, unsure where that thought had come from. Although, he supposed, he could just mean his job. Of course he did, he hated this fucking job. It wasn't what he wanted. He liked applied math. He liked physics.

“Sir!”

“Yes?”

“What does the formula mean?”

Barton sighed again. “Side C is the hypotenuse-”

“What, the hippopotamus?”

Barton groaned, picked up a pencil, twirled it in his fingers and mimed shooting it straight at Mr. Matthew's head. The class burst into brief laughter before Barton explained, once again, what a hypotenuse was. He smirked a little, but was looking forward to that drink more than ever.

*****

Phil Coulson was a family man, two kids, a dog, a loving wife, and a nice house in a suburb. He was also a police officer who had recently had to gun down a young man from a local crime ring who shot four people in a shopping complex. The kid had been strung out crazy on drugs, but he also happened to be the son of a mafia boss in the area. Not that Phil knew that.

Just as he didn't know that said mafia boss had put a hit out on the police officer who had killed his son. Crazy on drugs or not, that boy had been loved by his father.

Phil also didn't know who it was that ended up sniping him from a building a block away while he was shopping downtown with his family.

As blood pooled around the man and his children and wife screamed, Steve Rogers, codename 'The Captain', former soldier and currently the best hit man for hire, put away his rifle with a cold, emotionless gaze and left swiftly to collect his reward.

*****

Tony got to work about ten minutes late, which was sort of typical of him. He grinned at his coworkers with a winning smile and the teenagers he worked with snorted and one of the boys high fived him as he came in. He didn't mind working with kids, even if he knew he was something of a warning to them. Don't forget to study, or you too could end up age 40 serving chopped meat to crabby strangers in NYC!

“Is the boss in yet?” Tony asked as he slid behind the counter and started chopping said meat off the giant hunk spinning behind the counter for the customers.

“Yes.”

Tony spun around wide eyed as he saw his boss staring at him intently. Tony swallowed hard, this boss... had only started a few days ago. It was funny, Tony couldn't quite remember what had happened to the old one...

Oh, right, yeah there had been a... sale? Of the store... yeah that made sense. The bright green eyes locked on his own narrowed considerably.

“You will not be late again,” the clipped voice stated, porcelain skin shimmering under the florescent lights. Long black hair tied into a low pony tail wrapped in a hair net swished as the new boss turned away.

“Right, right, Ms Laufeyson!” Tony managed to grin at boss's backside. What a figure! Damn.

At least his new boss was the fucking hottest chick he'd seen in ages. That rack! Had to be double D, what a _babe!_

*****

Bruce Banner was standing in a small bedroom above a small store he remembered quite well but did not imagine he would ever see again. He had woken up there only two hours ago. A small child's voice could be heard on the other side of the door as they hammered on it. They were speaking in Spanish, screaming that their grandmother was very ill and they would pay for his help.

Bruce frowned, staring out the window. He was in South America. Last night he had been in Avengers Tower in New York watching the new pirated Star Trek movie with Tony, Clint and Thor (who had been mystified by the Midgardian depictions of futuristic space travel) while Natasha and Steve had been nearby running schematics on their next mission.

He didn't even remember going to bed.

Something was very, very wrong indeed. But the screaming was more frantic, and so Bruce picked up the medical bag he hadn't touched in a couple of years let alone seen, and opened the door to reveal a little girl with big teary eyes and a few bills clutched in her hand. He smiled gently, took her hand, and let her lead him away.

He knew the last time he did this he had run into a trap for SHIELD, so perhaps she would lead him to answers.

She led him to a sick grandmother. He worked as best he could to help her.

He had no idea what else to do. But he had to find the others as quickly as possible.


End file.
